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Many people yearn for personal transformation without knowing how to jump-start such a major change in their lives…
They generally waste energy on false starts or take a few steps in the right direction, only to find that old habits and conditioning pull them back to where they began, or very close to that.

What is takes to create a major shift is planning and consciousness. You must be aware of what your goal is and then set down on paper how you intend to get there. The method is the same whether you are aiming for a change in your relationship, career, or inner growth. Consciousness is the moving force behind all life changes, but it can’t help you until you offer a direction.

Here, then, are 10 steps that should be part of your action plan.

Step 1: Be Clear About Your Intention
Everyone’s mind is filled with desires, wishes, dreams, and memories, creating crosscurrents of intention. To be supported in what you want, your intention has to be clear and focused. Don’t think, “I want my life to change.” Be specific and precise: “I want my job situation to improve,” for example, is a little more precise. But focus needs to be even sharper, such as “I want to be appreciated at work by my supervisor.” Or “I want more responsibility and challenge.”

Step 2: Go Inside and Let Your Desire Ripen and Mature
In other words, meditate on your intention. With eyes closed, sitting quietly, get yourself centered. It may help to gently follow your breath for a minute or two. Visualize what you want to achieve. Don’t force the images and don’t fantasize. See the change you desire as clearly as you might see what your house looks like. Be realistic and calm as you see the new situation that you want to unfold.

Step 3: Feel Your Response to Your Intention
As you sit and mediate on your desired change, various feelings and sensations will come to the surface. Not all will be positive. You might feel resistance or discouragement or anxiety. This is good, because only in daydreams does everything look easy and perfect, because you’re in a state of fantasy. By feeling the resistance inside yourself, you are getting closer to a realistic outcome that’s successful.

Step 4: Let Go of Your Intention
To achieve your life change, you will be making many small decisions in the coming days. You can’t predict what these will be. In fact, for most people, looking ahead leads to discouragement. They don’t see a clear path, and unknown obstacles are certain to crop up. To avoid this kind of self-defeatism, don’t try to predict the future or conquer the unknown. Let the path unfold, which means letting go.

Step 5: Deal With Your Resistance
This, too, is a place where many people falter. After seeing how much benefit they’d get from a life change, they find it too difficult to face their inner resistance. By resistance I mean the feelings that say “No” to your intention. These can be rooted in insecurity, past failure, inertia, doubt, anxiety—the list goes on and on. But realistically, everyone has these resistances, including the people who successfully overcame them.

Step 6: Make a Plan to Overcome Obstacles
As daunting as it looks when you consider how much inner resistance you might have, paring it down into workable pieces is the key. Sit down and rationally plan what you need to do and what is actually feasible. I am a strong believer in gathering allies to help with any major life change. Going it alone sounds brave, but it actually isolates you and makes you vulnerable. Find someone you can trust, whether it’s a confidant, spouse, mentor, or therapist. Pick someone who takes your life change as seriously as you do. Meet frequently, and share what’s happening emotionally, because your emotional landscape is bound to change as you undergo any major shift.

Step 7: Pursue Only What’s Feasible
With your ally or allies, make a list in three columns. In these columns you are going to assess what needs to change. Column 1 is about things you can start to fix. Column 2 contains the things you have to put up with—for now. Column 3 contains the things you have to walk away from. Take your time. Go back to your lists repeatedly, until you get a clear view of your situation. Only then should you act.

Step 8: Achieve Something Positive
Success breeds success. Start fixing the small things that you feel more confident about. Don’t tackle huge personal issues in your life. Chop away at them through action you can control. It really helps to find someone who has gotten to the goal you have set for yourself. Asking someone who’s been there is invaluable.

Step 9: See the Project as an Inner Path
Even though you’re taking action, the real change will happen in your own awareness. Walk the path as an inner path; monitor what’s happening inside—a journal is a good idea here. By being self-aware, you give old habits and conditioning less of a chance to pull you backward. And if you do take a step back, note it, forgive yourself, and regroup. No matter what happens in the outside world, no one can take your inner path away from you.

Step 10: Connect with Higher Guidance
Depending on your personal beliefs, you can look to God, your soul, your higher self, your inner source—the terminology doesn’t matter. What you need is a connection with whatever makes you feel trusting and safe. Only with such a connection are major life changes achieved. For me, the path to the core of my being is through meditation, so I recommend it strongly. But it’s up to you to connect with your own core, the place where desires meet fulfillment.

I hope these 10 steps make your life change seem realistic and reachable. You mind, body, and spirit are designed for change. All you need is the self-confidence to know that you can set any goal that matches your highest vision. After that, the unfolding of success is a joint venture between you and yourself.

We are on the brink of an ecological mega-crisis threatening the future of life on earth and our actions over the next few years may well determine the destiny of our descendants. Between a manifesto and a tactical plan of action, How Soon is Now? by radical futurist and philosopher Daniel Pinchbeck outlines a vision for a mass social movement that will address this crisis.

Drawing on a huge range of resources and references Daniel Pinchbeck presents a compelling argument for the need for change on a global basis – it is only when we see ourselves as one planetary tribe that this change can occur. The central thesis is that humanity has self-willed the ecological crisis in order to bring about the necessary conditions for transcendence of our current state of being, by undergoing an initiatory ordeal on a planetary scale.

This collective ordeal is necessary for us to evolve from one state of being – our current level of consciousness – to the next. By passing through this initiation we realize ourselves as one unified being, a planetary super-organism in a symbiotic relationship with the Earth’s ecology and the entire web of life. Covering everything from energy and agriculture, to culture, politics, media and ideology, Pinchbeck’s book is ultimately about the nature of the human soul and the future of our current world. He calls for an intentional and consciously designed metamorphosis of our current systems, which transform capitalist and exclusive structures into participatory, democratic, and inclusive ones, based on an integration of Eastern metaphysics, social ecology, and radical political thought. “How Soon is Now? gives us the context we need to understand the chaos and turbulence of our times.” – Sting

Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of Breaking Open the Head (Broadway Books, 2002),2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006), and Notes from the Edge Times(Tarcher/Penguin, 2010). He is the founder of the think tank, Center for Planetary Culture which produced the Regenerative Society Wiki and his essays and articles have been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Rolling Stone, ArtForum, The New York Times Book Review, The Village Voice, Dazed and Confused and many other publications.

In 2007, Daniel launched the web magazine Reality Sandwich and co-founded Evolver.net. Evolver currently includes Evolver Learning Labs, a webinar platform, and The Alchemist’s Kitchen, for online retail. Daniel also edited the publishing imprint, Evolver Editions with North Atlantic Books. He is featured in the 2010 documentary, 2012: Time for Change directed by Joao Amorim and produced by Mangusta Films. He hosted the talk show, Mindshift.net, for GaiamTV.

How Soon is Now? Daniel Pinchbeck on social change and global transformation
Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of How Soon is Now?
We are on the brink of an ecological mega-crisis threatening the future of life on earth and our actions over the next few years may well determine the destiny of our descendants. Between a manifesto and a tactical plan of action, How Soon is Now? by radical futurist and philosopher Daniel Pinchbeck outlines a vision for a mass social movement that will address this crisis.

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Posted on October 2, 2017
When you try to change your entire life in a day, chances are slim unless you’re being taken into the Witness Protection Program.

And when you think about the effort that change takes, it can be paralyzing. But there’s a much gentler option. Let a story about my friend and colleague nurse-researcher Dr. Janet Quinn, author of I Am a Woman Finding My Voice, tell you more.

Once upon a time, Janet went to Australia to spend a week with a group of aboriginal elders. One day they piled into a van to search the arid outback for bush tucker (Australian for “food”). Items such as Witchety grubs and honey ants may seem unattractive to Westerners, but they’re delicacies in the outback.

The van was bouncing along a rutted road when suddenly it slowed way down. There was a camel in front, loping along at its own slow pace. The driver honked. The camel went faster. Then it slowed down again, apparently unconcerned about the van on its tail. The cycle of honking, trotting, and slowing down was repeated over and over again. The sight of Janet imitating the wagging gait of the camel’s behind can’t be captured in words, but perhaps you get the picture.

As she sat in the van, contemplating the dromedary, it occurred to Janet that there were miles of uninhabited land in every direction, yet the camel stayed on the road. If it had made the tiniest adjustment to its course—even a fraction of a degree—it would have had endless miles of unmolested space to roam in, and there would be respite from the honking and trotting. But apparently the camel hadn’t thought this through, and it kept to its uncomfortable course.

A lot of people do the same thing. You may be stressed and unhappy about the course of your life, but you just keep on walking in the same direction. When I’ve asked people why they don’t change their circumstances, the most common response is “fear.” They know the box that they’re stuck in. Even though it’s uncomfortable, it’s at least familiar. But if they change, there’s a chance that the unknown will be worse than their current situation. The enemy you know seems safer than the enemy you don’t know. The second most common reason why people fear change is that they feel overwhelmed by the amount of work it will take. But think of the camel. A change in course of just a fraction of a degree would have resulted in unlimited freedom.

I knew a working mother named “Shawna” whose dream was to become a nurse, but for years she was like the camel and stayed on her old course. She had a lot of valid reasons: School takes time and costs money. How could she and her son possibly survive if she quit work to study?

Then Shawna took a small step. Since her job paid for continuing-education courses at the local community college, she signed up for biology and loved it. The professor alerted her to a scholarship for older women entering nursing, and Shawna applied and was accepted. Student loans covered most of her living expenses, and she waited tables twice a week to cover the rest. Shawna became a nurse during the recent shortage. The hospital she signed on with gave her a cash bonus large enough to pay off most of her loans. One small change . . . and unimaginable opportunities opened up.

Psychologist Ellen Langer discovered that people who try new things are healthier and happier than those who stay in a rut. Even choosing a different route home from work benefits you. In her book,Mindfulness, she makes the point that variety keeps us engaged in life. You might be able to zone out if you’ve taken the same route a hundred times, but if you’re on unfamiliar turf, you have to stay tuned in. Tuning in encourages curiosity and results in a more adventurous life. An acquaintance of mine chose to drive a new way to work one day and got rear-ended in a traffic jam. But all’s well that ends well. She married the man who slammed into her.

This week, try making two small changes every day. Take a different street to work, turn off the television for an evening, go to a restaurant that serves exotic food, change your brand of toothpaste, smile at someone you don’t know, show up at work wearing Groucho Marx glasses, go to a different supermarket, get a more daring hairdo, eat dessert first, or buy or borrow a piece of clothing in a color you never wear. The possibilities are endless.

At the end of the week, reflect on what these little changes produced. Then think about your life. If you’re in a rut like Janet’s camel, identify one small step you might take toward change. There’s a whole lot of landscape to explore once you leave the beaten path.

(Excerpted from Chapter 20 of Inner Peace for Busy People by Joan Borysenko)

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World transformation involves replacing old paradigm theories and practices that have held back humanity’s progress since time immemorial. To be an effective replacement, the new paradigm approaches with their innovative theories and practices need first and foremost to offer definitive humanitarian solutions for the co-creation of a world that makes a difference for everyone.

In light of this need for world transformation, here are 7 old-to-new paradigm-shifting humanitarian solutions.

In the current old paradigm, the organizational classes whom make up the hierarchical controlling ‘power pyramids’ have a number of common patterns:

The very top of the controlling pyramid is parasitical, while those supporting the system at the bottom are slaves.

Those individuals at the very top, such as those in banks and mega-corporations, may exhibit behavioural patterns related to psychopathy, as the parasitical control system resonates with psychopaths, who are known to do well in business.

Information flows from the top down on a need-to-know basis.

The select few at the top propagating orders, rules, dictates etc, to which the rest of the members in the pyramid must follow, makes this organization a consciousness and soul-destroying set up.

In contrast, as a humanitarian solution to the old, the new paradigm:

Focuses on equality
Works as a team
Thus, eliminates the parasitical predatory pyramid with its psychopaths and power trippers.
Stops orders getting followed blindly. Communication, truth and transparency are keys.
Focuses on natural law as opposed to the potentially destructive man’s law.

2. Politics

Here is a classic example of the above in terms of organizational comparisons between the old and the new paradigm.

Old paradigm: In politics the hierarchical tree is ultimately an exercise in total control. The controlling political establishment has to go to extreme lengths in order to maintain the control: Mass programming, brainwashing, surveillance, harsh law enforcement, media propaganda, etc.

New paradigm: Having no hierarchical pyramid, any organization, such as a government and their obsession with control would be redundant. The government would no longer be looked upon as an organization to be dependent upon: No need for us to have any contract.

Related reading: Our Perception of Leadership Needs to Change If We Are To Change The World
3. Scientific approachesOld paradigm: The science, theory and application, is stuck on limitations and even delusional beliefs based on materialism: It is chained to the wishes and dictates of corporate/banker sponsors who would rather see profits than real humanitarian progress, with its dogmatic scientists from the ‘church of scientism…’

New paradigm: Goes beyond the limitations related to materialism and corporate/banker profit-based sponsorship. It involves a willingness to embrace and approach a number of subjects rejected by the old paradigm, such as for example, consciousness.

Thus, the new paradigm scientific approaches would solve many unsolved problems caused by the limitations imposed by the old, such as finding cures for disease and making use of free energy which would indeed be humanity-transforming with its innovative pioneers/inventors.

For more information, take a look at Rupert Sheldrake’s ‘10 Untruths made in Science’ with a view to how science could be set free through a turnaround.

4. Health

Old paradigm: As mentioned in Sheldrake’s ‘10 Untruths made in Science’ the medicine is mechanistic in its approach. It asserts that the body needs medical intervention rather than focussing on the body’s ability to heal naturally. Natural and holistic health based approaches are mainly ignored.

This limited approach to medicine has much to do with the Rockefeller owned and controlled corporate based medical pharmaceutical establishment with its ‘pill for every ill’ mentality. It puts profits over the genuine welfare concerns of people. It has gone to extreme lengths to suppress proven alternative natural health based cures for disease, as these approaches threaten their business.
New paradigm: Goes beyond mechanistic medicine, as it is holistic in approach. It looks at the mind-body-spirit connection that makes up the very fabric of our being. For example, diet nutrition not only focuses on preventative measures, but is also used as curative medicine. Sound, colour and frequency healing modalities would alhave a place.

Unlike the old paradigm’s medical pharmaceutical establishment based medicine which only treats symptoms, guaranteeing repeat business, natural health approaches are capable of curing.

5. Food
Old paradigm: The quality of the food we eat directly reflects our health: Having the monopoly on production and sales, Big Food mega-corporations demonstrate an abject failure to promote good health through mass producing processed junk foods. Many Americans serve as testimony to this. Through their heavy long-term consumption of these processed junk foods there has been a massive rise in obesity, and much ill health.

‘Mans Law’ supersedes ‘Natural Law’: a biotech company with their genetically modified (GM) foods is a classic example where in the old paradigm ‘Mans Law’ has superseded ‘Natural Law.’ Through tinkering with God-given nature, their manmade GM foods having toxic genes and agrochemicals, threatens the health of consumers, causing diseases and allergies. Then there’s much concern over whether or not the genetic modifications will cause extinction of certain species and how this could affect ecosystems.
New paradigm: As a contrast to the industrial monoculture, our food system is getting redefined. Increasing in numbers, people as individuals and in communities are growing their own food. Some have created their own farms. Based on organic principles, the food produced is of high quality and promotes good health through its consumption.

6. Media
Old paradigm: The mainstream media owned and controlled by the world’s ruling elite, is a propaganda and mind control tool used to manipulate the masses into a consensus reality. In ‘Orwellian Newspeak’ fashion, the mainstream media wants complete control over the narrative: It claims to be the definitive news source, even though it has been exposed on numerous occasions for reporting blatant lies, cover-ups and deception, to favour hidden agendas. It will not accept the alternative view.
New paradigm: The alternative (independent) media continues to redefine journalism: In recent times, many of us have seen how the ruling elite’s mainstream media have tried to blackout the alternative media with false accusations of ‘fake news.’

Real journalism, unbiased reporting, truths, transparency, and enlightenment are the future: That future is in the alternative media. Viva alternative media!

New paradigm: Takes the more holistic approach; more involved in thinking, feeling, responding, and acting from the heart, doing what is honest, right, fair and just.

From the heart-based perspective, besides getting active practically, seeing how we could be involved in the creation of the new paradigm, to make a difference, we also need to focus on where we are consciously at with our thoughts, feelings, emotionns and how we perceive our reality, as our inner world reflects the outer world.

In other words, consciousness is the key to world change.
To conclude:

Some may dismiss the idea of world transformation, seeing it as nothing more than a pipe-dream. But world transformation through the new paradigm is not an option for humanity any longer — it is an ultimatum. To be blunt, it’s a do-or-die situation. As more and more people from all over the world are waking up, let’s take the creation of the new paradigm experience one step at a time.

Paul Philips: My blogs, articles and videos and my related alternative news/natural health website NewParadigm.ws are my stand for the possibility of creating a world that makes a difference for everyone. I graduated in biomedical sciences. My website is slanted on health matters and exposes the related deceptions…

However, over the years I have come to the firm conclusion that just about every subject under the sun needs redefining using more truthful, honest and integral approaches in theory and practice, hence the name ‘New Paradigm’. From these new approaches, from the ‘imagination of ourselves,’ from our visions – a ‘new era’ in humanity can result!

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Things are really beginning to be shaken up in the world, and no doubt this is being reflected in people’s personal lives. Climate changes, Brexit, President Trump, and economic uncertainty to name but a few. So we can be forgiven for feeling rather unstable and insecure as the very foundation of our reality is changing.

So, how might we embrace this change, both in the wider world and in our personal lives, while maintaining a sense of who we are within all this? The answer — embracing death, in order to truly live.

Deny Death — Deny Life

We live in a world that is afraid of death. The uncertainty of what lies beyond and the fear of losing ourselves is so strong, and this manifests itself in our lives every day. It is not just about the final goodbye to this world, but in all the little deaths that happen throughout our lives. We cling to who we once were, afraid to take the step into the unknown.

What does this do to us? It makes us misers — hoarding possessions, experiences and identities, never letting go and moving on. We seek security and routine because within these we can build up a safe and consistent picture of who we are. But if we never let anything go, how can we bring fresh and new experiences into our life? By denying death in our lives, we never really truly live.

How limiting this is!!

I put to you that we are not a set of conditioned responses to a fixed and limited environment, but infinite beings expressing and creating from the pure potential of the Source. Check out Lissa Rankin’s Love Letter to Humanity for a lovely take on this perspective. (Here is an excerpt.)

“You will, in fact, die. Not because Consciousness doesn’t love Itself, doesn’t love YOU. But because Consciousness realized that the game of being human, the full rich experience of human life on Earth, can be exhausting, even to Consciousness. … Humans need to return to the vast darkness of Consciousness Itself, free from the limitations of form, in order to recharge and replenish, so Consciousness can play and learn and grow some more—in a human body.

“When the human dies, the life force of Consciousness, like a drop of rain, rejoins the ocean of Consciousness, merging with all other sparks of Consciousness, yet never ceasing to be the drop of rain.” — Lissa Rankin

Yes, we are all unique in our own way — so why can’t we express that uniqueness in all circumstances? It’s about finding the essence of who we truly are (which is unchanging) and dropping the limiting identities that we so desperately cling to. In doing this we can embrace life and live it more fully, however it changes for us. We know exactly who we are in every moment — our essence does not change. Is embracing vulnerability, change and the unknown, and finding our true unchanging essence within them not the real meaning of security?

Conscious Dying in Every Moment

How can we apply this philosophy to our everyday lives? It’s about embracing all the little deaths that occur. It also helps to work with your feelings about the end of your life. What does it mean to you to let go of your body, your personality, your experiences and your loved ones?

When we really go into these feelings it’s bound to get a little rocky. Lots of unconscious fears will start bubbling up to the surface. It’s important to let any feelings that you might have about the big or little deaths in your life come forward. Honour them by expressing them and then feel who you are through them i.e. the essence of who you are – the silent witness beyond the feelings. Surrender totally and let go.

This will likely initiate feelings of expansion and peace, and if not then there may be something deeper to work on. When these feelings arise then work to express them. Perhaps you want to move your body, dance or sing, draw a picture, or maybe you feel to sit in it for a while. It’s essential to focus on how you feel to be, rather than what you want to do, and then let right action take place. (For further exploration on taking the next step into action, see this article by Stacy Vajta.)

As you develop this practice you will likely receive regular intuitions on how to proceed around change in your life. It will just feel ‘right’. And, your life will be changing, as you flow with the constant movement of the universe.

Richard West is a carer, psychologist, spiritual facilitator and writer. He has worked close to death for 7 years and is passionate about helping people to move on in a conscious way, even though our society is geared to fight against death. Richard is also a spiritual facilitator at Openhand (www.openhandweb.org).

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In this compelling revised edition of his book The Turning Point, best-selling author and visionary Gregg Braden merges his expertise in leading-edge science with present-day realities to reveal the strategies for embracing stressful change in our lives. This updated edition contains an all-new chapter not included in the original release, featuring material on the surprising discovery of brain-like cells – sensory neurites – located within the human heart, and the role they play in creating personal resilience. The powerful heart-brain connection made possible by these cells is now recognized as a portal to the deepest levels of our intuition, as well as a gateway to the subconscious mind.

This book gets to the heart of the fundamental question you have no doubt asked yourself in the face of the complexities and challenges of the modern world: How do I make everyday life better for myself and my family? Through his skillful synthesis of easy-to-understand science and real-life circumstances, Gregg uniquely provides the answer, describing:

State-of-the-art discoveries that are the key to embracing big change in a healthy way

The three shifts that will transform the way you think of your career, lifestyle, and finances

The simple strategies of heart-based resilience that you can learn and use immediately for optimal health in our stressful world

A template of strategies for resilient living for your family and community . . . and much more.

Gregg is an optimist, as well as a realist. His lifetime of work with indigenous cultures, combined with his scholarship in science and ancient traditions, gives him reason to believe in our ability to transform in a healthy way. To get to that point, however, we must be honest with ourselves. When the facts are clear, our choices become obvious and something beautiful happens. And it’s the power of this simple truth that is the basis for Resilience from the Heart. Join Gregg on this intimate journey as he unlocks the mystery of the world’s extremes . . . to reveal the power to thrive in life!

New York Times best selling author Gregg Braden is internationally renowned as a pioneer in bridging science and spirituality. Following a successful career as a Computer Geologist for Phillips Petroleum during the 1970s energy crisis, he worked as a Senior Computer Systems Designer with Martin Marietta during the last years of the Cold War. In 1991 he became The First Technical Operations Manager for Cisco Systems, where he led the development of the global support team assuring the reliability of the internet in its early days. For more than 22 years, Gregg has searched high mountain villages, remote monasteries, and forgotten texts to uncover their timeless secrets. To date, his work has led to such paradigm-shattering books as The Isaiah Effect, The God Code, The Divine Matrix, and his most recent, Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age. Gregg’s work has been published in 27 languages and 30 countries and shows us beyond any reasonable doubt that the key to our future lies in the wisdom of our past.

Gregg Braden gets to the heart of the fundamental question: how do I make everyday life better for myself and my family? He provides state-of-the-art discoveries that are the key to embracing big change in a healthy way and offers simple strategies of heart-based resilience that you can learn and use immediately for optimal health in our stressful world. Gregg is a New York Times best-selling author and geologist, and is internationally renowned as a pioneer in bridging science and spirituality.

You Can Change the World: The Global Citizen’s Handbook for Living on Planet Earth should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of the planet. Written by renowned scientist, futurist and Club of Budapest founder Ervin Laszlo, You Can Change the World answers two pertinent questions-first, what is at the root of all the conflict and crisis in today’s world? And second, what can actually be done to move toward a world where we can live in peace, without marginalizing and killing each other and destroying the environment?

A handbook that urges readers to become global citizens who aspire to live responsibly on this precious but highly exploited and crisis-prone planet, You Can Change the World provides a simple and basic message: in today’s world it is neither wealth nor power, nor the control of territory and technology that make the crucial difference. How we think and act shapes our present and decides our future.

Dr. Laszlo is generally recognized as the founder of systems philosophy and general evolution theory. His work in recent years has centered on the formulation and development of the “Akasha Paradigm,” the new conception of cosmos, life and consciousness emerging at the forefront of the contemporary sciences. He serves as President of the Club of Budapest, Chairman of the Ervin Laszlo Center for Advanced Study, Chancellor of the Giordano Bruno New-Paradigm University, and Editor of World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research.

He is recipient of the highest degree in philosophy and human sciences from the Sorbonne, the University of Paris, as well as of the coveted Artist Diploma of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Budapest. Additional prizes and awards include four honorary doctorates.

His appointments have included research grants at Yale and Princeton Universities, professorships for philosophy, systems sciences, and future sciences at the Universities of Houston, Portland State, and Indiana, as well as Northwestern University and the State University of New York. His career also included guest professorships at various universities in Europe and the Far East. In addition, he worked as program director for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). In 1999 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Canadian International Institute of Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.

For many years he has served as president of The Club of Budapest, which he founded. He is an advisor to the UNESCO Director General, ambassador of the International Delphic Council, member of both the International Academy of Science, World Academy of Arts and Science, and the International Academy of Philosophy.

Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (2004, 2005), he got Goi Peace prize (2001). He has authored more than 70 books, which have been translated into twenty languages, and has published in excess of four hundred articles and research papers, including six volumes of piano recordings.

Ervin Laszlo on The Future of Our World
Dr. Ervin Laszlo, is a world-renowned philosopher of science, systems theorist and integral theorist as well as a classical pianist. A true Renaissance man and citizen of the world, he is the author of over 80 books translated into 21 languages. In this interview we discuss the very timely book he edited with Allan Combs called Thomas Berry, Dreamer of the Earth — The Spiritual Ecology of the Father of Environmentalism. It contains 10 essays by eminent philosophers, thinkers, and scientists that focus on the environmental and social crises facing humanity and the urgent need for a massive paradigm shift.
Read about this book and others at http://www.ncreview.com/

Scientifically based strategies for enacting successful and enduring change on personal, societal, and global levels, no matter what your background

• Shares the stories of people who have changed history, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ben Franklin, and Gandhi, detailing how they used the 8 laws of change

• Based on more than 16 years of scientific and historical research as well as the author’s own experiences during the Civil Rights movement

• Explores research in the fields of medicine, neuroscience, biology, and quantum physics to reveal the science of how the 8 laws of change work

Inspired by his own powerful experiences during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and other social movements in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, Stephan Schwartz spent 16 years researching successful social transformations, uncovering the science and the patterns behind them all. He found that there are three ways to create social change. The first is the advancement of technology and science. The second–change compelled by physical power–is almost always coercive and violent and, for those reasons, not long lasting. The third avenue of change he discovered–the most successful and enduring–is one brought about by something so subtle it is often not taken seriously: small individual choices based on integrity and shared intention.

Revealing how the dynamics of change are learnable, Schwartz explains the 8 laws of individual and social behavior that can enable any person or small group–even ordinary people without great wealth, official position, or physical power–to bend the arc of history and create successful lasting transformation. He shares the stories of individuals who have actually changed history, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Benjamin Franklin, Mother Teresa, and Mahatma Gandhi, detailing how they implemented the strategies and tactics of the 8 laws to achieve their success.

The author explores research in the fields of medicine, neuroscience, biology, and quantum physics to reveal the science of how these laws of change work. He explains why compassionate and life-affirming changes have the most enduring impact and shows how each of the 8 laws cultivates a sense of “beingness” in the individual, empowering your integrity and connecting you to something greater than yourself–the key to lasting change on the personal, societal, and global levels.

Stephan A. Schwartz is a distinguished consulting faculty member at Saybrook University, a research associate of the Laboratories for Fundamental Research, editor of the daily web publication Schwartzreport.net, and columnist for the peer-reviewed research journal Explore. The author of 4 books and more than 100 technical papers, he has also written articles for Smithsonian, OMNI, American History, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Huffington Post. He lives in Langley, Washington.

Stephan A. Schwartz – Transformational Dialogue
About Stephan Schwartz: “My life has been spent exploring extraordinary human functioning, and how individuals and small groups can, and have, affected social change. I’ve done this both as an experimentalist in parapsychology, and by being privileged to have been a part of several major social transformations: civil rights in the 1960s, the transformation of the military from an elitist conscription organization to an all-voluntary meritocracy in the 70s, and citizen diplomacy between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 80s and 90s. Both the experiences and the research have convinced me that all life is inter-connected and interdependent.”

The common use of the word ‘consciousness’ easily tends to narrow its meaning only to the subjective side of the total range of our experience. Yet, since both non-dualism and some philosophical implications of Quantum Physics regard reality as an indivisible whole, the words ‘consciousness’ and ‘world’ are just two different descriptions of one and the same reality (respectively in terms of the ‘first’ or of the ‘third’ person), while the alleged separation between ‘subject’ and ‘object’ is nothing but an
illusory mental construct. Actually, a deep exploration of what we call ‘consciousness’ in our direct experience beyond words is tantamount to a free fall into a bottomless pit of awe and wonder.

Mauro Bergonzi is a Professor of Religions and Philosophies of India, University of Naples. Mauro Bergonzi has been teaching Religions and Philosophies of India at the Università degli Studi di Napoli since 1985. He is author of academic essays and articles on Oriental Philosophies, Comparative Religion, Psychology of Mysticism and Transpersonal Psychology. Since 1970, he has practiced meditation, always preserving a non-confessional and non-dogmatic approach. After a natural and spontaneous fading out of both seeking and the seeker, only a radical non dualism prevailed in him. In this respect, his long-standing familiarity with the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj, Jiddu Krishnamurti and Tony Parsons has been crucial. In the last 10 years, he has been invited to give regular satsangs in Italy.

Most of us walk through each day expecting few surprises. If we want to better ourselves or our lives, we map out a path of gradual change, perhaps in counseling or psychotherapy.

Psychologists William Miller and Janet C’de Baca were longtime scholars and teachers of traditional approaches to self-improvement when they became intrigued by a different sort of change that was sometimes experienced by people they encountered–something often described as “a bolt from the blue” or “seeing the light.” And when they placed a request in a local newspaper for people’s stories of unexpected personal transformation, the deluge of responses was astounding. These compelling stories of epiphanies and sudden insights inspired Miller and C’de Baca to examine the experience of “quantum change” through the lens of scientific psychology. Where does quantum change come from? Why do some of us experience it, and what kind of people do we become as a result? The answers that this book arrives at yield remarkable insights into how human beings achieve lasting change–sometimes even in spite of ourselves.

William R. Miller, PhD, is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico. He has published 40 books, including Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change, and his many scientific publications reflect his interests in the psychology of change, the treatment of addictions, and the interface of psychology and spirituality. The Institute for Scientific Information lists him as one of the world’s most cited scientists.Janet C’de Baca, PhD, received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of New Mexico. She is currently a research scientist with the Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest, in Albuquerque. Her professional interests include cross-cultural psychology and the prevention and treatment of addictive behaviors.